"Bob Hobden" wrote in message
...
"Pete C" wrote


"David WE Roberts" wrote
The Lidl peat free compost looks much like the local authority soil
improver.
Very coarse grained, and has the warning that you should use very strong
gloves when working with it.
This could suggest that it is from recycled plant material and so could
have 'foreign objects' in it.
Don't know, but I don't recall seeing this kind of warning on other
composts.

Anyway, it does not retain water well and so needs either frequent
watering or some kind of deep tray under a pot to catch the water and
let it be absorbed over a period of time.

I had a pot of wilting sunflowers which have much improved with this
treatment - other two pots had 'normal' compost in them.

A pot with an outdoor cucumber was also not doing well.
Pot is now in a plastic tub and the cucumber has sprung back to life.

So be warned - possibly O.K. as a soil improver but questionable for use
on its own in large pots.

I recently bought 48 pansys. 36 were planted in a raised bed with B&Q peat
free compost. The rest in clay soil. Those in the soil are fine, those in
the compost have all died. There are also masses of weeds in that bed. BE
WARNED!

I took a large compost bag full of diseased plant material, blighted
potatoes and stems, and onions with white rot and brown neck rot down the
local recycling centre two days ago. I asked the chap there where it
should go, he said "in the Green Waste", I said "but it's diseased", he
said "where else are you going to put green waste?" so I tipped it in the
green waste bin for making into compost and soil improver.
I have asked our Council in the past if they can supply soil improver to
our allotment site but I don't think I'll bother now.

Bob, I contacted Westland this year after finding that their compost was
full of weed seeds.
I asked them if they could tell me what treatment they gave their compost to
kill
weed seeds and pathogens (such as eelworm). They have not replied. As I use
about 700
litres of new compost a year for my late flowering chrysanths, I have gone
back
to using pure peat compost.

Phil